


A Perfect Amount of Disaster

by ronqueesha



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Banter, Bickering, Disaster, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9390878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronqueesha/pseuds/ronqueesha
Summary: Hawke assumes that he can take Fenris to a secluded beach to celebrate some alone time.Of course, such things never work out that way for the newly named Champion of Kirkwall.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of a Valentines exchange on the Dragon Age subreddit. This is for 3jarsofbees on Ao3, or bleptember on Reddit.

The warmth of the sun tickled against Hawke’s nose as he looked over the expanse of ocean and sand of the Wounded Coast. The ocean breeze tussled his hair and wafted the sounds and smells of ocean life toward him in a pleasant assault. The salt in the air mixed with the pungent aromas of sea foam and fish as he took in a long breath. Gulls cawed in the distance as gentle waves crashed on the sandy beach and into jagged rocks.

As a farm boy raised as far inland as one could live in Ferelden, Hawke had a deep (get it?) fascination with the sea, even after so many years living in Kirkwall with its famous port. If the boat ride from Gwarden to Kirkwall hadn’t been so overstuffed with tragedy and people, he might have enjoyed himself. He even had to hide a smile every time he took a ferry to the Gallows, although that hidden grin always died on its own by the time he reached the island. Hell, Hawke sometimes swore that the clouds looked lighter and fluffier on the ocean than they ever did over land. There was just something so _magical_ about this place, and the boundaries between land and water.

Speaking of magical…

Was there any question that he’d find an excuse to bring Fenris here? He had no real occasion, other than the fact that neither of them had any pressing quests, concerns, or business ventures to deal with in the foreseeable future. The trail of Fenris’s master had gone cold yet again, and Hawke’s newfound wealth and fame kept him from having to seek work with the petty lowlifes he used to know. The Qunari were long gone from the city, and the Templars seemed content with staying out of everyone’s business for once. 

All in all, for Hawke and his friends, life was good. And he thought he could celebrate such a rare change in fortunes.

He _thought_ he and Fenris would be alone on this secluded area of beach.

He _THOUGHT_ that, after what happened with mother, he had seen the last of crazy blood mages and their horrible misuse of magic.

Was the universe cursed, or did it just have a vendetta for people with the last name Hawke?

“Templar spies! They’ve found us, brothers and sisters!” A woman wearing tattered robes and sporting a heavily scarred face screamed as she jumped up from behind the shattered remains of a rowboat and plunged a knife into her open palm.

“Aw, come on, are you serious? No, wait, you don’t…” Anything Hawke would have said in retort was cut off as the shrill woman’s cry mixed with the familiar rumble of magic gone awry. He let his words fall into a frustrated hiss.

To his side, Fenris grumbled and reached for his impressive sword. “Two hours ago, you told me: ’ _Let’s go visit the coast, Fenris. I swear we’ll be totally alone all afternoon. I found this spot just off the trail that would be perfect_.’ Two hours, Hawke. And look what you made us step in.” His impression needed work, but the sour clipped tones dripped with enough sarcasm to fill the ocean at their side.  

“Come on, don’t be like that. This is plenty romantic.” The human responded as he reached over his shoulders, where his trusty daggers were sheathed. Even though he had planned for this to be a relaxing, private, and probably very intimate encounter between the two of them, neither men had left Kirkwall unarmed. There had just been too many instances of these things happening for them to assume they wouldn’t need their weapons.

Not long after the first crazy lady began summoning her own blood in some kind of magical ritual, other ragged and desperate mages crawled out from behind rocks, popped up from a sandy trapdoor, and he swore one of them appeared out of nowhere and did a neat three-point landing on the beach. The lot of them all had weapons, mostly clubs and short knives, but a few had full staves and dangerously long daggers.

“Hey, remember that time I took you to the Dwarven market at sundown?” Hawke said as he took a leaping step forward and used the flat of his blade to deflect a poorly-thrown rock.

Fenris rushed forward past Hawke, the elf’s muscles rippling as he heaved his greatsword over his head and into the body of a woefully unprepared mage. Blood flew everywhere as he finished his attack. “The Dwarf part of hightown is not ‘romantic’, either.”

“No, but hear me out. Remember that dwarven band that I tried to hire when we were there?”

“The one with the large horns, or the one with the drums?” Fenris whirled his body around in a graceful arc, letting much of his first victim’s blood slide off the blade, before he used its momentum to drag him around and into the face of another target.

Not to be outdone, Hawke bounced off the spiked shoulders of Fenris’ armor, and brought his weapons down into the collarbones of a mage. The problem with blood mages was that you had to work quickly, before all their gross fluids got loose and shit got crazy. The effort of sliding his daggers into the mage’s body made Hawke’s arms hurt, and he dismayed at the plethora of targets still around the pair.

“Drums.”

“What about them?”

“What would you have said if I managed to finally get their services, and they were waiting for us up the road?” That part was also a sad truth. Yesterday, he had indeed hired a dwarven band to relocate to his spot on the beach, where they would briefly serenade the lovers before heading back to town, well paid for their efforts.

Fenris jabbed forward with his weapon, and barely deflected a desperate stab from a mage and his rusted, nasty knife. His leg muscles rippled as he followed through with a great cleave, ending the threat before the mage got to use any magic. Hawke watched each movement with rapt fascination, even though the battle around them had been thoroughly joined.

“I’d say you were a fool and an idiot. Why would they drag all those drums out here?”

“Money does a lot of things.” Hawke grinned as he broke into another jog, took four long steps, then flattened his body into the soft wet sand below him. The wet sand allowed him to slide several paces-worth of distance, right between the legs of a mage who thankfully wore trousers instead of a robe. His daggers did quick work of the apostate.

“I’d rather you spend that fortune of yours on more sensible things.”

“And I’d rather spend it on you.”

In response, Fenris grumbled something in Tevene, rather than dignify Hawke’s words with a phrase in the common tongue. The human returned to his feet and winked at the elf, his lips curling into a grin.

Unfortunately for the two experienced fighters, their surprising aggression wore off at that moment, and Hawke felt Fenris’s spiked gauntlet dig into his shoulder then shove him to the left as a bolt of lightning arced between them. Hawke hit the sand yet again as his vision darkened, stunned by the magical power directed his way.

“Okay.” Hawke groaned as he regained his composure. He knew he didn’t have very long before one of the surviving mages took advantage of his downed position and smote him down with yet more magic. He had to get on his feet NOW. “You’ve convinced me. No more beach trips.”

When his head stopped spinning, Hawke forced his eyes open and saw Fenris rising to his feet as well, using the sword, driven point-first into the ground, as a means to brace himself. “I don’t know. This is rather bracing.”

“Oh stop being such a contrarian! I hate when you do that!” Hawke teased as he mirrored his lover’s movements. In a heartbeat, the two of them were back in fighting form, back to back with each other, ready to start the next round.

“You’d hate it more if I stopped.”

“You know what…” Hawke turned his head, but his retort died on his lips. “You’re right. In fact, I demand you be more contrarian from now on.”

“If that’s the case, I’ll stop right now.”

“Oh for the love of…”

Fenris smirked a beautiful little grin. “I believe that I just, in your words, gotcha.”

“Maker above, would the two of you SHUT UP!?” Scarface the mage shouted as she approached the pair at a walking pace, all around her, the survivors of her group converged as well, their weapons held at the ready, but their faces showing grim concern. A crimson sphere hovered above her open palm, drawing liquid out of the self-inflicted wound with each passing second, growing larger and larger. Hawke swore he also saw it starting to glow. “Here we are, trying to hide from Templar bastards like you just to stay alive, and you’re treating this like some kind of joke!”

“Well, if you had just listened to us in the first place, you would have realized that we’re not Templars.” Hawke said with as much of a diplomatic tone as he could muster, but he could not hide the frustrated disbelief that peppered every word. A bad habit that he didn’t feel like correcting.

“Swords, armor, no magic? You may not be part of ‘em, but you definitely report to them. Everybody in this town does.”

“First off, these are not swords, you festering flabby meat flap!” Hawke shouted. “These are handcrafted daggers. Can you say that word? DAG-GERS!? Made just for me in gratitude for my services to Kirkwall. Or let me guess, you have no idea what those words mean, either.” He held his weapons forward for emphasis, letting some of the blood that had coated the blades drip onto the sand below.

“Hawke.” Fenris whispered. “Is it wise to antagonize a mage with an orb of blood in her hands?”

“Shut up. This is my date they’ve ruined, and I have every right to voice my displeasure!”

Fenris sighed while the mages looked unaffected.

“We don’t care who you are.” Scarface said as her orb definitely started glowing. “And in a few seconds, no one will ever care again. This is the fate of all who oppose mage freedom!” Her words gurgled in her throat as she shouted, but the warm beach air prevented her from having any satisfying echoes or reverb.

“Wait!” Hawke moved his daggers to a non-threatening position and held his palms up in an equally unthreatening pose. Not a surrender, but more of a ‘ _I’m willing to talk if you are’_ kind of gesture. “What if we prove we’re not Templars?”

“How?” Scarface raised a quizzical eyebrow, but didn’t stop her magic.

“First of all, hello, nice to meet you, I’m Hawke. Champion of Kirkwall, slayer of the Arishok, savior of Kirkwall. This beautiful elven specimen at my side is Fenris, who deserves all the credit and accolades.” The political spiel of titles came out a little easier every time he said it. “And your name is?”

The words had something of an effect, as several of the mages let their weapons drop and their jaws go slack as they realized who they had just threatened, and realized why so many of their group had been so easily cut down. “That’s Hawke!” some murmured, while others whispered “We’re all so dead” to themselves.

“It don’t matter.” Scarface clicked her tongue. “’’Cause now we got a hostage. Just think of how the damn Templars will react when they realize their precious little champion got killed by one of us, eh? Might force them to change their mind about hunting us.”

“It really won’t.” Fenris growled before Hawke could respond.

“Come on, let’s be reasonable people, now.” Hawke said as he calmly sheathed his daggers. He did not give his companion a signal to do the same. “You know that this won’t work in your favor. It never does. Just put your blood back where you got it and walk away. We’ll all pretend that this horrible afternoon never happened, and go on with our lives. I promise, cross my heart, hope to die, stick an Archdemon in my eye, I won’t tell on you.”

Several of the mages nodded in earnest agreement, while others turned away and walked off, content with taking the deal before they ran into the blades of the famous and dangerous men.

For a moment, genuine concern crossed Scarface’s eyes. From long experience dealing with these kinds of people, Hawke knew she was doing some hard arithmetic in her dumpy mind, weighing her ideals with the reality presented before her. Hawke had given this choice to so many thugs, bandits, debtors, and scoundrels in the past that he recognized every single tic and expression that crossed her face.

The eyebrow furrow of “is he telling the truth?”

The lip curl of “Screw him, I can still get what I want.”

The cheek twitch of “What if he’s not lying?”

The jowl flab of… well… old age and bad nutrition.

And finally, FINALLY, the most telling signal of all. A bead of sweat down the brow.

Damn it.

“No deal! Die now, Champion of Kirkwall!”

And then the orb of blood magic pulsed bright red, like a torch or a fireball about to be cast.

At least, it would have, if Scarface’s hand hadn’t been severed at that exact moment.

Fenris moved faster than anyone could see, and brought his sword down on the offending appendage with lethal precision. The blood orb lost whatever forces held it together, and a great deal of crimson splashed over the legs of the three people as the severed hand smacked into the wet beach with a wet PLOP.

For a moment, Scarface remained silent and still, as if her math-addled brain had yet to process what had just happened. The two men also remained silent, though the gentle rustle of the waves were interspersed with the elf catching his breath after such a mighty swing.

All three of them looked down, to see the hand sticking out of the reddened dirt.

Then they looked at each other’s crimson-splattered legs.

Then their eyes made contact.

Hawke screamed first, but only because he saw Scarface take in a gulp of air to start yelling. He had seen plenty of severed limbs in his life, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed them. Nor did he like it when the survivors of such injuries began screaming in agony. In fact, he probably hated the sound more than they hated their physical pain. His roar was definitely the more impressive of the two.

After a moment of shared outrage and extreme discomfort, Scarface sunk to her knee and cradled her hand-less arm in her undamaged palm. “You fools!” She managed to choke out between heavy breathing. “You interrupted the spell! Now I can’t stop it!”

“Stop if from what, mage?” Fenris growled and brandished his weapon again, this time aimed at her neck.

She did not reply. She just started laughing, or, well, gurgling a sound that might have been laughter under the guise of her terrible injury and flabby scarred face. At her knees and feet, the formerly blood-red sand turned pink. Then it started glowing.

“I think she means-“ Hawke tried to say, his eyes locked on the strange light crimson ground, before he felt an armored hand push against the small of his back.

“Run!” Fenris shouted as he grabbed his sword and sprinted up the beach. Hawke remained hot on his heels as the realization clicked in his head. He didn’t know magic as well as many people, especially Bethany, but he knew an explosive charge when he saw one. Oh, little Beth would have probably loved this moment. Well, loved in the figurative sense. She would have been literally running for her life along with the two of them if she were here. What she would have loved was the slow speed at which he realized the peril. Magic-hating Fenris realized it long before he did. And that said something. The beach slipped by almost too quick to see as the two of them sprinted for their lives through the beach’s warm sands.

They ran side by side until Hawke felt his torso seize up, and a biting pain jab into the left side of his stomach. He slowed his pace, which caused the tattooed elf to rocket forward in comparison.

“What are you doing!?” Fenris shouted over his shoulder.

“Wait… I just need… to breathe…” He wheezed as he slowed to a comfortable jogging pace.

“You run from one end of the city to the other on a daily basis!”

“Not at a dead sprint!”

Another Tevene curse word, and Fenris slowed his stride.

At this slowed pace, Hawke was able to take in a more coherent picture of the beach. There were lines in the sand on this part, deep grooves about the width of a human palm, but of varying lengths.

“Oh Maker dammit, they stiffed me!” Hawke half-shouted, half sputtered.

“What?” Fenris slowed some more to keep pace with the human.

“The dwarves! They were supposed to remain here all afternoon!”

“Perhaps the mages scared them off.”

Hawke stopped and looked his lover in the eye. “It’s the principle of the matter. I paid them for a service, and look what they repaid me with. Nothing. Oh, I am going to send SUCH a sternly worded letter to their guild master.”

“So I take it this was the place you had set aside for us?”

The two of them stopped amidst the scratched sand and warbling ocean currents. “Yeah. Nice, isn’t it?”

“Not really. There’s an infestation that might be difficult to eliminate.”

“And there’s the contrarian I love.”

“It’s what I apparently am best at.”

Without prompting, both of them leaned forward and wrapped their arms around each other, sparing a moment to catch their breaths while nestled in each other’s armored shoulders. For all his elven composure, Fenris needed a break now and then as well. He had even begun to sweat from the exertion of the battle and the sudden sprint, an unusual occurrence for an elf as fit as him. The unmistakably pleasant smell of Fenris overpowered the salty ocean air.

A moment later, the two of them parted, but they did not stop looking into each other’s eyes.

“I really thought it was gonna explo…”

Fenris interrupted Hawke by once again charging forward and locking his lips with the human’s. Hungry and insistent, like many of his kisses, Hawke felt wonderfully powerless against it. He let himself be swept away by the sensation of the elf against his body as the world turned orange and red.

Behind him, the blood bomb detonated, bathing the entire beach in its smoky ruin. The air felt hot for a short time, but no harm came to the two as they celebrated each other in the wake of yet another victory.

Aside from concentrating wholly on the physical sensations of the elf who hungrily took his body and his breath away, all Hawke could think about was how cool he must have looked with an explosion backing up a wonderful kiss.

 


End file.
